PREVIOUSLY:

• Two Suspects Sought For Assault Following Investigation Into July 4th Confrontation on Eureka Waterfront

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Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On July 25, 2022, at about 9:42 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies on patrol in the Garberville area conducted a suspicious vehicle investigation on Sprowl Creek Road near Tooby Memorial Park.

Deputies located a man and a teenage female inside the vehicle. The man, later identified as 20-year-old Joseph Bradley Boxell, initially provided deputies with a false name. Upon confirming his identity, Boxell was found to have an outstanding PC 836 warrant for his arrest.

Boxell was taken into custody and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of false identification to a peace officer (PC 148.9(a)) and violation of probation (PC 1203.2(a)), in addition to warrant charges for assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm (PC 245(a)(1)) and assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury (PC 245(a)(4)).

The female was released at the scene.

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

California Department of Justice agents realized they were short-handed just hours after a Los Angeles police officer shot and killed an unarmed man on Hollywood Boulevard.

A 911 caller told police the man was threatening people on the morning of July 15, 2021, waving what appeared to be a pistol in a busy tourist pocket. The object in his hand turned out to be a lighter with a pistol grip.

The fatal shooting was the first test of a law requiring the Justice Department to investigate police shootings of unarmed civilians. The agents would need to interview witnesses, mark evidence and canvass nearby businesses for surveillance footage, according to documents detailing the state’s response.

The department’s budget for these complex shooting investigation teams allotted three agents; the department sent 12.

Even so, justice officials would later say, it wasn’t enough — calling their deployment “inadequate.”

“There were dozens of tasks and assignments that the … special agents could not accomplish because of limited staffing,” the department wrote in a budget request submitted to the Legislature in January.

For decades, police oversight in California began and ended within a local department. Rarely did the state step in.

That has changed. After unarmed Stephon Clark was shot and killed by Sacramento police officers in 2018, state lawmakers began taking a more active role in police accountability, passing several statewide mandates aimed at improving policing in California. Since then, they’ve tapped both the Department of Justice and California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) for new duties.

But ambitious deadlines, new job responsibilities and delayed funding are testing the limits of both agencies, officials say.

The shooting investigation on Hollywood Boulevard is still open, as are all 20 other Justice Department investigations into the shooting of unarmed civilians.

California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training missed its deadline this year to get police departments up to speed on newly-required bias screening for police applicants. The commission has also been given new authority to decertify police officers, a responsibility that is reshaping the previously low-profile commission.

Both agencies were redirected by legislation. For the Justice Department, its new role came with Assembly Bill 1506, which mandates that its agents investigate each officer-involved shooting of an unarmed civilian. Beginning next year, upon request of a law enforcement agency, the state is also supposed to begin reviewing the local agency’s use of force policy and make recommendations.

The long shadow of George Floyd

When the Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the officer-involved shooting bill in September 2020 — four months after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police — it was a politically important piece of legislation to the governor and to then Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Current Attorney General Rob Bonta also supported the plan while still in the Legislature.

But months before the law went into effect on July 1, warning signs went up internally at the Justice Department.

“Additional burdens are increasingly being placed on the very limited staff of the (Bureau of Investigation) and (Bureau of Forensic Services),” one Justice Department employee wrote to the Attorney General in April 2021, according to redacted emails obtained by CalMatters.

“We are already stretched incredibly thin.”

The Justice Department asked for $26 million to pay for the new shooting investigation teams. The Legislature allotted half of that, about $13 million.

Becerra complained about that discrepancy to the bill’s author, Democrat Assemblymember Kevin McCarty of Sacramento.

“The Department of Justice is a multi-billion dollar agency. They have lots of other funding sources to pay for it, and we can settle up afterward.”
— Kevin McCarty, Democrat Assemblymember from Sacramento

The $13 million budget allocation “is significantly lower than our estimates and not enough resources to stand up professional teams to perform these new investigative and prosecutorial duties,” Becerra wrote to McCarty in January 2021. “As a result, the DOJ will have limited capacity to implement this bill, short of redirecting resources from other essential, mandated work, which could compromise those operations.”

McCarty recently told CalMatters that the Justice Department should be able to find a way to fund the program.

“The Department of Justice is a multi-billion dollar agency,” McCarty said. “They have lots of other funding sources to pay for it, and we can settle up afterward.”

When reminded of the 2021 letter he received from Becerra asking for more money, McCarty was still skeptical.

“That’s ridiculous. That’s why we passed on (adding more money to the DOJ budget),” he said. “As opposed to these hypotheticals, why don’t you do the work for a year and see how much money it actually costs?”

Since 2016, police officers have shot and killed an average of 140 people in California each year. Of the people killed, about 20 are unarmed, 10 have a replica firearm and another 10 have objects that may not qualify as deadly weapons.

That amounts to about 40 shooting investigations of unarmed civilians each year.

The latest shooting took place July 15, 2022, in Anaheim, exactly one year after the first shooting investigated in Los Angeles by the Justice Department.

Dividing the $13 million budget by the number of open investigations – 21 – the cost of each investigation so far would average $619,000, an amount McCarty said is “enough to do the work.”

The department had 5,008 employees in June, according to the Controller’s Office. The Department of Justice declined to provide the number of employees in each job category, including those who would be assigned to officer-involved shooting investigations.

“Implementing AB 1506 has absolutely imposed new demands on the entire California Department of Justice and the entire office has, as necessary, adjusted admirably to the new responsibilities,” a department spokesperson wrote in an email to CalMatters.

California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training has had similar challenges.

Small agency handed big new duties

In the past five years, many state directives aimed at improving police operations in California landed before the commission. The relatively small agency, with about 120 employees, is known for training and certifying police officers — but that job description is quickly expanding, often under tight deadlines.

For instance, in late 2020, legislators passed Assembly Bill 846, forcing police agencies to screen for bias during a potential officer’s psychological evaluation. The commission was tasked with creating bias screening materials by Jan. 1, 2022.

They missed the deadline. (In a strange twist, a legislative clerical error inadvertently wiped the bias screening mandate from the law, though that is being remedied.)

“A year seems like a long time, but it’s not when it comes to regulations,” said Melani Singley of POST, who manages all regulations and guidance for police officers. “The timeline makes it challenging to develop something that is going to meet the intent of the law.”

In May 2022, the agency’s final changes were approved by its oversight commission. Now, as the Legislature rushes to reinstate the bias screening mandate, the commission is expecting the regulation to go into effect by Aug. 1.

“A year seems like a long time, but it’s not when it comes to regulations.”
— Melani Singley, Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training

Other new duties are piling up. For years, the commission averaged a few legislative bills a year. Nowadays, said POST executive director Manny Alvarez, “we’re tackling a lot more now than ever before.”

Between 2015 and 2020, lawmakers introduced roughly nine officer training bills a year, almost double the average between 2010 and 2014, according to a study by the Little Hoover Commission, an independent state oversight agency.

“It’s a lot of work for a small number of people,” said Singley.

But soon the commission will be larger.

With a new directive giving the commission authority to decertify police officers, which was enacted by Senate Bill 2, the agency is expected to nearly double in size over the next six months after receiving a roughly 32% funding increase earlier this month.

“We’re hiring,” said spokesperson Meagan Poulos.

In just a few months, the agency that almost exclusively dealt with police will interact with the public as well, as citizens and police departments make their cases regarding alleged bad officers. The commission will investigate officers accused of serious misconduct and recommend if an officer should be decertified.

Several states, including Mississippi, Alabama and Montana, already have decertification processes in place.

Is the commission overloaded?

While police decertification is one of the most significant changes the commission has undergone, some are raising concerns about whether the state is overloading the agency, which is overseen by a board that meets a few times a year.

In a report addressed to the governor and the Legislature, the Little Hoover Commission recommended lawmakers “temporarily refrain” from mandating new training requirements.

“…there is little evidence to demonstrate which types of training actually achieve intended goals and positively impact police behavior — and which do not,” wrote Pedro Nava, chairperson for the Little Hoover Commission.

Instead, the Little Hoover Commission recommended California evaluate its current police training requirements.

State analysts also are concerned the small organization will not be able to make such a drastic shift as quickly and efficiently as the Legislature may expect.

“POST will likely face significant challenges implementing SB 2, primarily due to the fact that the commission’s staffing will need to roughly double by January 1, 2023 — only six months after receiving funding in the budget…” wrote the Legislative Analysts Office in a report earlier this year.

Meanwhile, several commission workers told CalMatters they are still cautiously optimistic they will make their deadline on instituting the first police decertification process in California history.

“One of the big unknowns to us is the volume of data and the volume of reviews and investigations there will be,” Alvarez said. “We’ve never collected that type of data.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Lillian Marie Belloni, age 64, passed away in Yuba City, California on Jun 5, 2022. Lillian was born to Morton and Leatrice Taber on December 16, 1957. She was the 4th of the 5 Taber kids who all grew up in McKinleyville. Lillian grew up surrounded by her siblings, her mom and her grandmother as well as her cousins, the Wheeler Boys. She loved all of them and always had a smile on her face when she would talk with or about them. She recalled how tough times were, but because of her family and friends she had many fond memories. Lillian graduated from McKinleyville High School in 1975.

Lillian married Bruce Belloni in 1977 and had two children, Bradley and Amanda. They eventually divorced, but remained dedicated to their children.

She loved living in Humboldt County, but she couldn’t resist moving to Redding to be closer to family and to start a new chapter in her life. She was always grateful and appreciative to her sister Linda for helping her when she moved to Redding. She met many great people in Redding and became a real estate agent. But once she had grandchildren, the pull to Yuba City was too much to resist. So, in 2016 she moved in with her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren. She loved being their Grammy! She was determined to be at their softball, basketball and football games. Lillian got to retire while living with her grandchildren. During retirement she dedicated herself to helping them with schoolwork, cheering for them at sporting events and even providing them with transportation when their parents couldn’t.

Lillian was preceded in death by her mother, Leatrice Taber, her grandmother, Bessie Dykes, and aunts, uncles, a brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and cousins.

She is survived by her son, Bradley Belloni, her daughter and son-in-law Amanda and Will Bowman, her grandchildren Jessica Bowman and Emmit Bowman, her sister Linda Davis, brothers Tom, John and Don Taber, numerous cousins, nieces, nephews and friends.

Lillian was a bright spirit who would do anything for anyone and she would sacrifice her own needs if she believed others would benefit.

There are graveside services for Lillian on Friday, July 29 at 11 a.m. at Ocean View Cemetery in Eureka. The family has also scheduled a wake/celebration for Lillian at the VFW Hall on 9th and H street in Eureka at 5 p.m. with a cash-only bar. Please feel free to bring a dish to share if you would like. The family would like to encourage anyone who has pictures of Lillian to bring them to share with her family and friends.

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The obituary above was submitted by Lillian Belloni’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Fortuna Police Department release:

On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at approximately 11:00 am, Fortuna Police responded to the 1800 block of Penn Avenue in Fortuna in attempt to serve three outstanding arrest warrants on Tyler Knauff, a subject serving time on Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS).

Subjects at the residence where Tyler Knauff was believed to be denied knowing his whereabouts. Officers believed Tyler Knauff to be hiding in the attic of the residence in attempts to avoid arrest. Announcements were made by officers and K9 Blitz with no response. K9 Blitz located Tyler Knauff hiding in the attic, where he had concealed himself under insulation and was not visible to officers.

Once located by K9 Blitz, Tyler Knauff surrendered to officers.

Officers arrested 42 year old, Tyler Knauff for the outstanding arrest warrants and for the fresh charge of 148(a)(1) PC, resisting, delaying or obstructing.

Tyler Knauff was transported and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility.

Cal Fire Humboldt-Del Norte Unit Release 

Starting today, Monday, July 25, 2022, a CH-54A Sky Crane Helicopter will be based at the CAL FIRE Rohnerville Air Attack Base (RAAB). The helicopter is one of ten Type- 1 (the largest water dropping capacity, Type- 4 being the smallest) helicopters added to CAL FIRE’s statewide aviation assets through exclusive use contracts. These helicopters will be used by CAL FIRE for initial attack and extended fire attack through mid-November, with an option to stay on longer if fire activity dictates.

This CH-54A, call sign 3HT or “Three Hotel Tango,” has a 2,650 gallon fixed tank that can carry water or fire retardant. The tank also has the ability to make split load drops, allowing the flight crew to adjust drops to best suit the fire and fuel conditions on the ground.

With the addition of 3HT, there are now two Type-1 helicopters at RAAB with the second Type-1 contracted by the Six Rivers National Forest. The regularly stationed RAAB aircraft, Air Attack 120 (the command and control platform for fire aviation operations) and Tanker 96 are still available at RAAB. Also, in the Humboldt – Del Norte Unit is Kneeland Helitack with a Type-2 helicopter with firefighting handcrew and water dropping bucket, stationed at the Kneeland Helitack Base in Kneeland.

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PREVIOUSLY: 

• The County is Set to Buy Most of This Eureka Block, Including Raliberto’s Taco Shop, and Turn It Into a Parking Lot
• Residents of the Eureka Block the County Would Like to Turn Into a Parking Lot File Suit Seeking Relocation Assistance
• The County Has Abandoned Its Attempt to Buy a City Block in Eureka and Turn It Into a Parking Lot

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Three years ago, the County of Humboldt was all set to pull the trigger on the purchase of three apartment buildings, two homes and a Raliberto’s Taco shop, all located on the 1000 block of Fourth Street in Eureka.

The immediate plan was to demolish the structures and replace them with a parking lot, though a longer-term Facilities Master Plan, which had been in the works for years, involved grouping county programs and services together at a series of “campuses” for the sake of convenience.

This block, which sits catty-corner to the county jail and courthouse, would have become part of the county’s “criminal justice center,” Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn explained at the time, with the wood-shingled Public Defender’s Office remaining where it stands on the block’s southwest corner.

However, the deal fell through amid public criticism and a lawsuit brought by three tenants of the block, who had managed to temporarily block their eviction and were seeking financial relocation assistance from the county. The Board of Supervisors officially abandoned the county effort to buy this block in December 2019.

But on Friday, in a special meeting that lasted all of five minutes, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors authorized Public Works staff to make an offer on one small piece of it: the three bedroom, one bath home located at 1017 Fourth Street, directly behind the Public Defender’s Office. 

In a brief presentation to the three county supervisors in attendance Friday, Sean Meehan, deputy director of facilities management for Public Works, described the parcel as a “strategically valuable” piece for the county’s abiding Facilities Master Plan, though he cautioned that the purchase is probably a long shot.

Meehan | Screenshot

“Frankly, this is kind of a Hail Mary,” Meehan said. “This is a last-ditch effort to try to get with the owner and with the owner’s agent to attempt to purchase it. We’ve heard that there are other interested parties, private sector parties, who would be able to move faster than we can.”

In a phone interview Monday afternoon, Meehan explained why real estate deals are so complex for the county. California government code prescribes certain documents and procedures that typically require five or six public meetings to work through. The City of Eureka would have to review the purchase to ensure conformance with its general plan; there’s a clearinghouse process to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act and more.

The owners of 1017 Fourth Street, Gerald and Belinda Rush, told county officials that they had several interested parties and would be entertaining offers over this past weekend, Meehan said.

“The special meeting was the last thing we could do,” he explained.

What will the county do with the property if the purchase winds up going through? 

Meehan said that’s a big “if,” though he added, “I think we’d be looking at redeveloping it along with the Public Defender building next door.”

Built in 1911, the house sits in what has long been one of Eureka’s roughest neighborhoods. Currently vacant, the 1,748-square-foot home sits on a tenth of an acre with three lanes of southbound Hwy. 101 traffic thundering past the front door. It carries an asking price of $212,000 — less than half the median for single-family homes in Eureka — and is being sold “as-is.” (County staff didn’t disclose what they plan to offer.)

The online listing describes the home as “fixer-upper,” a common real estate euphemism reserved for the most rundown of shit-holes, and photos reveal that this property is no exception to that rule. Plywood has been nailed to the exterior windows; mysterious black stains traverse the yellowed linoleum; and dangling flaps of overhead sheetrock reveal exposed ceiling beams.

Around noon on Monday, neighbor Tereasa Edeline was sitting on the stoop next door. She asked why I was taking photos and said she’d already run off three people who’d been trespassing at the house for sale. But she also said the block has improved immeasurably in recent years. There’s still one apartment in her building with problematic tenants, but they’re due to be evicted next month, she said. After that, the block should be even nicer.

“You’ll see a huge difference from what it has been in the last few decades because my friend, who is the director of the Women’s [Shelter] Rescue Mission, has placed all of the people that are on this block,” Edeline said. “They’re all mentally stable and financially stable people.”

The apartment building next door to hers has been remodeled since she moved in two and a half years ago, she said. Squatters had taken up residence in the house around back, but now a single mom lives there with her kids.

“We’re taking back the block!” she declared proudly. “I’m telling you right now, this whole neighborhood is completely different than it was two or three years ago. …I constantly go out here and I clean up garbage and I try to make it nice.” Earlier in the day, she said, she’d taken her watering can and some Dawn dish soap outside to mop up an oil stain, and she described her neighbors as equally conscientious.

“We were all homeless,” she said.

She was relieved to hear that the rest of the block is not currently up for sale and she’s not slated to be evicted. 

“That would traumatize me,” she said.

Edeline was excited to hear that the county government is interested in purchasing the house next door and maybe using the space to expand the Public Defender’s Office.

“You should tell ‘em it’s a lot nicer around here,” she said.

Hoopa Fire Chief Greg Moon talks about this morning’s fire in Hoopa.

Two separate fires in Hoopa and Hawkins Bar are under control after they were illegally set by people within a span of 10 hours, fire officials say. 

Hoopa Fire Chief Greg Moon told the Outpost that authorities are looking for a suspect who is believed to have intentionally started the most recent fire, which was ignited along Highway 96 near the Hoopa Shopping Center at about 7:15 a.m. today.

“It looks like this fire was set intentionally in a grass field,” Moon said in a video on social media today. “We are investigating these fires and we are taking this very seriously.”

The fire was held to under an acre and firefighters will continue to monitor the area throughout the day.

A separate fire prompted a multi-agency response in Hawkins Bar yesterday at about 9:30 p.m., after a man allegedly left an illegal burn pile unattended on the 1600 block of Hawkins Bar Road.

Hawkins Bar Volunteer Fire Department Chief Todd Wright told the Outpost that burning is suspended in the region, and that the man could face penalties following an investigation by the U.S. Forest Service. The U.S. Forest Service did not respond to questioning about the fire.

The fire was contained to three-fourths of an acre shortly after midnight. Firefighters will remain on scene to perform mop-up duties for the next few days.

“Disaster avoided,” Hawkins Bar Volunteer Fire stated on social media after containing the blaze early this morning.

The Salyer and Hawkins Bar Volunteer Fire Departments, Hoopa Wildland Fire Department, Yurok Fire Department, Trinity County Sheriff’s Office and USFS law enforcement with the Six Rivers National Forest all responded to the scene.

Potential witnesses in connection to this morning’s fire in Hoopa are encouraged to call the Hoopa Valley Tribal Police at (530) 625-4202. Moon said that people can also call the “WeTip” arson hotline (1-800-47-ARSON) to receive a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of an arson suspect.

“We’re nearing extreme drought conditions and everybody needs to be very cognizant of burning, fires, towing trailers and making sure people are being really careful,” Moon said. “We have so much at stake. We have a chance for a summer without smoke for once, and I would love to see that.”